Integrated circuit elements are generally mounted on a support which includes a body of an insulating material having a plurality of terminal pins molded in the body and projecting therefrom. The number of pins and their arrangement depends on the number and arrangement of the contact pads on the integrated circuit element. The number of pins required may be at least twelve and generally many more. The support is generally formed by placing the pins, which have a head on one end, into appropriate holes in a heated mold with the heads of the pins extending into the cavity for molding the body. The body is then molded around the heads of the pins either by compression or injection molding.
In our co-pending application for U.S. patent Ser. No. 151,291, filed Feb. 1, 1988 entitled PIN TRANSFER APPARATUS, there is disclosed an apparatus whereby a desired number and arrangement of the headed pins can be easily and quickly transferred into a mold cavity. The transfer apparatus of this application includes three stacked plates having a plurality of aligned holes therethrough. The middle plate is movable with respect to the outer two plates between a first position in which its holes are aligned with the holes in the outer plates, and a second position in which its holes are not completely aligned with the holes in the outer plates. With the middle plate in its second position, pins can be inserted through the holes in the plates but the heads of the pins will not pass through the hole in the middle plates. Thus the pins will be supported in the transfer apparatus. When the middle plate is moved to its first position, the heads of the pins can pass through the completely aligned holes so that the pins can fall from the transfer apparatus into the mold cavity to which the pins are being transferred. The holes in the plates are arranged in rows with some of the rows containing a different number of holes than other rows.
Although the pins can be inserted into the holes in the plates manually, this is a time consuming and therefore expensive operation. Therefore, it would be desirable to have an apparatus which would automatically feed the pins into the transfer apparatus. In addition, it would be desirable to be able to feed the pins into the transfer apparatus a row at a time and be able to selectively vary the number and position of the pins being fed into each row.